Iran, Trump, and the cracks in American power

If there is one thing that now appears irreversible, it is that Iran did not lose this war and that the United States and Israel have collectively looked irrational and overconfident in their predictions. The assumption that overwhelming military pressure would quickly subdue Tehran has not materialised. Instead, the conflict has exposed the limits of American coercive power in West Asia and revealed the dangers of strategic arrogance dressed up as certainty. It increasingly appears that Washington’s room for manoeuvre is constrained by Benjamin Netanyahu’s escalation strategy and the influence of the pro-Israel lobby within American politics. For decades, Washington…